cally a group of people coming together to

discuss ethical issues that have a real, sig-

nificant bearing on our lives, on govern-

ment decisions and policies.”

Over 100 teams competed in the regional

ethics bowls held in Seattle, Washington in

2010 in order to earn a place at the national

ethics bowl. MSU placed first at regionals

and qualified for the national competition.

In the months leading to nationals, each

team is given a set of ethical issues to re-

search in preparation for the national bowl.

Returning Ethicat, Shelby Rogala, de-

scribed the preparation for the national

competition. She said, “Each team receives

the same ten cases and is given three

months to research these cases and prepare

The Montana

State University

Ethicats team

placed second in

the National Ethics

Bowl Champion-

ship on March 3,

2011, in Cincin-

nati, Ohio. The

Ethics Bowl is a

philosophical com-

petition based in

the form of a dis-

cussion rather than

a debate.

Six MSU stu-

dents participated

in the National

Ethics Bowl: Sam-

Foulkes, junior;

Madeleine Pike, junior; Shelby Rogala,

junior; Matt Smith, senior; Griffin Ste-

vens, senior; and Joseph Thiel, junior.

MSU philosophy professor Kristen

Intemann founded the Ethicats team in

2006 and serves as the coach. In the Eth-

ics Bowl, a facilitator poses an ethical

question to two teams who are judged

on their responses. Topics range from

business ethics to immigration to bioeth-

ics, often involving current ethical di-

lemmas occurring in court cases around

the globe.

Ethicat Joseph Thiel said, “The Ethics

Bowl is a competition focusing on the

practical ethical concerns of everyday

life, not just theoretical ethics. It is basi-

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

Ethicats 1

Coyote Project

Annual Friends of

Stegner Lecture

2

3

Hausser Lecture

Distinguished

Speaker Series

4

5

Objects in

Wonderland

6-7

Student News

Mapping

Philadelphia

8

9

Mountaineering,

History and

Science

10-

11

Faculty News

Faculty Books &

Upcoming Conferences

12

13

Visiting Faculty &

New Staff

Greetings from

The Chair

14

15

Montana State University D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 1

MSU Ethicats Earn 2nd Place at Nationals

Coach Kristen Intemann and Ethicats Shelby Rogala, Griffin Stevens, Made-

leine Pike, Joseph Thiel, and Matthew Smith (from left) at the 2011 National

Ethics Bowl. (Photo courtesy of Ethicats).

Ethicats, continued from front page.

for the competition. Our team divided up the cases so that each person worked on three cases. We then orga-

nized and met over winter break and throughout the school year to share ideas, create outlines, and challenge

each other’s ideas.” Thiel said, “For our time, the most difficult part of preparing was simply finding the time

– we are all incredibly busy students.” During the competition, teams answer questions based on the cases

they have researched. The team does not know ahead of time which side of the case they will argue. Rogala

said, “The Ethicats has taught me how to have the guts to stick to one side of an argument…to realize that

each side of an argument can be legitimate… even when you are arguing about a topic that you don’t agree

with.” At nationals, the Ethicats argued disparate cases and were often assigned to argue against their person-

al beliefs. In the lead up to the final, the Ethicats debated: teacher tenure and student achievement; the ethical-

ity of de-barking dogs; mortgage defaults and lender responsibility; caffeine based alcoholic beverages; tobac-

co use and the workplace; and economic development in Haiti. MSU came out the winner in each of these

rounds and earned a place in finals. Teams were evaluated by a panel of judges who give them points based

on the intelligibility of their answers, their focus on ethically relevant considerations, their avoidance of ethi-

cal irrelevance, and their deliberative thoughtfulness. During the final round, the Ethicats had to evaluate the

ethics of Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070, which requires officers to seek proof of citizenship from indi-

viduals. Coming in second place against schools like Dartmouth and the University of North Carolina, Chapel

Hill, is not only an incredible accomplishment for the students, but also a testament to their coach. Thiel said,

“I am continually blown away by (Coach) Kristen – she is amazing. If you look at how many things she does

for the university, how much passion she puts into her students and her teaching, it is just amazing.” More

than anything, when you listen to the Ethicats speak about their experiences together, it is striking how com-

mitted the team is to one another. Rogala said, “Growing up, I played a lot of team sports – but I have never

been on a team before that is so good at supporting one another, at constantly challenging one another to be

better.” The Ethicats are already looking forward to next year. The Ethicats hope to bring two teams to the

Regional Competitions in Seattle, Washington, in fall 2011.

Urban Coyote Project and the Dolphin Connection By Sara Waller

This summer, the Coyote Project has collected about 20 new vocalizations of wild coyotes living in the Mal-

ibu Heights area north of Los Angeles. These recordings will be used as a baseline to explore how coyotes

change their calls in the urban environment. The Coyote Project also adopted a new research site in Cleve-

land. With the help of Robin Lake and his wife, I had the pleasure of meeting Dick Secor of Forest Hills

Park in Cleveland Heights. The park is situated between Cleveland and East Cleveland, and has one pack of

3 coyotes that has recently had 6 pups, and they interact with another 3-4 coyotes who hang out in the nearby

cemetery. The coyotes are shy — they even run

from Dick’s video camera when it is set up all by

itself — but they are present, and they do vocalize

from time to time. The new coyote team for 2011-

2012 is Michael Ward, Derek Brower, Taylor Har-

ring, and Sam Foulkes.

In addition, philosophy student Madeline Pike was

able to spend a morning on the dolphin boat this

July. While we did not see any dolphins, we con-

templated developing a new sea lion vocalization

research project. Madeline got to drive the boat

and meet researchers at our California State partner

campus.

P A G E 3

P A G E 4

M O N T A N A S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y

Annual Margaret and Harry Hausser Lecture

By Sara Waller

On September 15th, our 2011 Hausser Lecturer, Profes-

sor David Schweikart, spoke to a large audience in the

Hager Auditorium of the Museum of the Rockies. With

doctoral degrees in both mathematics and philosophy,

Dr. Schweikart brought his expertise on the current

world-wide economic meltdown and offered a hopeful

solution to the quandary: Market Socialism, or Econom-

ic Democracy.

Economic Democracy is a system that emerged

from Dr. Schweikart’s reading of Marx and Haber-

mas. Capitalism seems to demand constant expansion

of production and sales, which is impossible in a finite world with finite re-

sources. If this is the case, then recession (and worse) is inevitable. We may,

for a short period, live in a dystopian world with skyrocketing unemployment

and increasing poverty among the majority of the world population. But these

conditions lead to what Habermas called a “Legitimation Crisis,” i.e., a point at

which most of the citizenry questions the ability and authority of the current

rulers (in both government and business) to competently run the country and its

economy. It is when this occurs that real change can take place.

Schweikart offers us a new option: a system in which workers own con-

trolling shares in their businesses, and in which leaders of those businesses are

elected by the workers. In this system, profit comes, not necessarily in the form

of more money, but in increased leisure

time and thus in opportunity for per-

sonal fulfillment. Rather than continue

in a system in which we depend on the

demand for higher sales and more

products, we enter a system in which

production is steady, basic needs are

fulfilled, and in which the market is not

subject to fluctuations based on panic,

lack of worker control, and greed.

The department has several

signed copies of Dr. Schweikart’s new-

est book, After Capitalism, slated for

students to be honored at the end of the

academic year.

We are, as always, grateful to

Mrs. Margaret Hausser for her gracious

sponsorship of this annual event.

Professor

David

Schweickart,

of Case

Western

Reserve

University,

brought his

expertise on

the

current

world-wide

economic

meltdown,

and offered a

hopeful so-

lution to the

quandary:

Market

Socialism,

or

Economic

Democracy.

P A G E 5 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Symbols and Scriptures of Jesus and Buddha:

Distinguished Speaker Series with Timothy Beal and William Deal

1953 “Shooter’s Bible”

Timothy Beal is the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion at Case

Western. A writer and scholar, he has published 13 books and many

scholarly articles on the cultural history of the Bible, religion and popu-

lar culture . Beal focused his section of the lecture on cultural concep-

tions of the Bible. He asked, “What does the phrase “the Bible” mean?”

Beal discussed the authoritative power of the phrase, the Bible. He said

the phrase implies the first and last word, something without contradic-

tion, something accessible, and something completely comprehensive.

Beal also talked about the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.

Beal discussed how the celebration of the King James Bible is also a

nostalgic reflection on disappearing print culture. “We have reached the

twilight of print culture.” Beal discussed the media’s role in scriptural

culture. He showed examples of many instructional books and manuals

that call themselves “Bibles,” ranging from the “Shooter’s Bible” to

“Biblezines.” Beal said the Bible we know and think of today has no

original singular representation. “The further we go back, the more vari-

ance in texts we find,” said Beal. “Over time, the cultural icon of the Bible has been deconstructed.”

William Deal is the Severance Professor of the History of Religion at Case Western Reserve University

and holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Cognitive Science in the university's Department of

Cognitive Science. His scholarship focuses on the academic study of religion, religion and ethics, and

Japanese Buddhism. Deal spoke about "Ritual Characters, Iconicities of the Lotus Sutra in 11th Century

Japanese Buddhism." Deal focused on the concept

of sacred text. “Sacred texts have no inherent qual-

ities,” said Deal. “Instead, they become sacred be-

cause of the way human communities interact with

and think about the texts.” Deal explained that the

Japanese Lotus Sutra is “as close as we can get to a

cultural icon” in Japanese Buddhism. He said the

Lotus Sutra, which is a part of the Buddhist canon,

is a “text that transcends any kind of particularity.”

Beal talked about parts of the Lotus Sutra serving

to represent the whole. He said, “In the Lotus Su-

tra, one part of the text eventually stands for the

whole. The text and the image become one and the

other.” Deal said texts and scripts do not stay in

one place. He said, “They move across cultures.”

Chapter on “Expedient Means”

Heian Period, 11th century, Tokyo National Museum

Timothy Beal and William Deal, both professors of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University

in Cleveland, Ohio, spoke at MSU on Tuesday, October 25th as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series.

Their lecture focused on "Iconic Scriptures in Buddhism and Christianity, from the Lotus Sutra to the

King James Bible.” The free lecture drew a large crowd, filling the Museum of the Rockies auditorium.

Objects in Wonderland

P A G E 6 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

By Jared Infanger

The summer air is crisp and cool at an elevation of 6200 feet. The steam is rising off the

surface of the geysers and the scent of sulfur fills the air. I pass Minerva Terrace, Liberty Cap,

and the historic buildings of Fort Yellowstone. Cruising past grazing elk and gawking visitors,

I abruptly stop my bicycle to wait for oncoming traffic to pass before proceeding. This oncom-

ing traffic is not the expected and typical RV filled with wide-eyed visitors but rather a twelve-

hundred pound buffalo moseying down the road. As I wait for the buffalo to wind its way

down the road, I reflect on the moment and acknowledge that this is not your typical morning

commute. In fact, nothing about Yellowstone, or “Wonderland,” is typical. Every object in

“Wonderland,” as Yellowstone was so aptly named over a century ago, tells a rich story about

the cultural and natural history of the park and as an intern at the Heritage and Research Center,

I experienced some of these stories firsthand. The Heritage and Research Center, or HRC, hous-

es the park’s museum collection comprising over

300,000 museum objects, 20,000 books and manu-

scripts, and 90,000 photographic prints and negatives.

The mission of the HRC is to preserve the cultural

and natural heritage of the park and make it available

to researchers. The objects of “Wonderland” vary

from the banal (bags of dirt) to the exotic (Clovis

points dating back to 9000 years before present) to

the bizarre (the skull of the largest bison on record).

As part of the mission of the National Park Service

and the HRC, the objects within the collection are

available for the benefit and enjoyment of the public.

In keeping with this mission, some museum objects

remain in the park and visitors use them on a daily

basis. These objects include historic furniture at Old

Faithful Inn, the Lake Hotel, and the various muse-

ums and visitor centers within the park. Managing

the preservation of these objects requires forays into

the park to conduct inventories and condition reports.

While traveling from one historic lodge to an-

other, I absorb the beautiful landscape surrounding

me. I receive a “curatorial tour” of the park stopping

at significant locations where grand hotels once stood

and significant events occurred. It is a great way to

see the park and get a behind the scenes look at the

day-to-day operations. However, going into the park

was not the only way to see the park and learn about

its wonders. Some of the most exciting and interest-

ing artifacts in the collection are the personal photo

albums and diaries of early visitors to the park.

(continued on next page) These

P A G E 7

M O N T A N A S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y

provide a glimpse into early perceptions of the

park and allow the viewer to travel vicariously

through the stories and writings of these visi-

tors. One album recounts the six-week jour-

ney through Yellowstone in July 1900 of

Maude McCoy. Maude tells a story of amaze-

ment and wonder while recounting the hard-

ships early travelers experienced trekking

across the landscape. She recounts her party’s

nightly encounters with bears requiring the

men to bang on pots and pans to scare them

away. Other travelers would record their im-

pressions of Yellowstone on postcards. Visi-

tors frequently wrote terms such as “spectacular” and “wonderful” to describe their experiences.

I transcribed these accounts into the park’s database and, by doing so, saw the park through oth-

er people’s eyes. Early images depict travelers sitting along the edge of Grotto Geyser, dipping

their handkerchiefs in Handkerchief Pool, and feeding bears from their stagecoach. Perhaps the

most impressive and significant objects at the HRC are the photo albums of William Henry

Jackson and the watercolors by Thomas “Yellowstone” Moran. Jackson’s photos and Moran’s

paintings were influential in convincing congress to create the world’s first national park.

While there, I worked on the preservation, conservation, and cataloging of objects both

cultural and natural. The scope of the collection is so vast, every day presented itself with new

artifacts to examine, research, and catalog. As part of cataloging a new object, I researched its

origins, wrote a brief history, measured, photographed, and entered all this information into the

park’s catalog database. After cataloging, I re-housed the object in a custom-built tray for stor-

age where it will be available for future researchers. In addition to cataloging museum objects,

I designed and installed exhibit cases in the lobby of the HRC. My exhibit emphasized the ear-

ly visitor’s experience including their passage by train, the grand tour on stagecoaches, and

camping with the permanent camping companies. Some of the objects included in the exhibit

were early guidebooks, a tent fragment, and dinnerware. Other exhibit installations featured

objects in the collection ranging from bear and wolf skulls to beaver pelts.

The scope of the collection at Yellow-

stone is amazing and each of the 300,000 ob-

jects tells a story about the history of

“Wonderland”. These objects embody the

history of the park and each artifact, ranging

from army uniforms to fluorescent pink t-

shirts, tells a story about the atypical experi-

ences in “Wonderland” that will be shared

with future generations due to the careful

preservation and efforts of the Heritage and

Research Center.

Summer at the Heritage and Research Center

P A G E 8 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Undergraduate Scholar: Kate Fulbright

In Spring 2011, History-SETS major Kate Fulbright received a travel grant from the Department of

History and the University Scholars Program. Kate’s research explored the roots of American Mete-

orology and Atmospheric Science, focusing particularly on women’s issues within these fields. Kate

describes her trip: “I arrived in D.C. and settled into my hostel for the night. The next morning I head-

ed for the Smithsonian Archives for my meeting with Pam Henson, the head archivist. Pam welcomed

me into her office where we went over the typical procedures of the archives and discussed my re-

search in depth. I spent one day exploring the city. I exhausted myself going from the Botanical gar-

dens, the Natural History Museum, the Native American Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.

The next morning, I began my research at the National Academy of Science. The NAS archives’ re-

laxed atmosphere made the work go by quickly. The archivists, eager to help and interested in my

work, made the trip a rich and valuable experience.”

McNair Scholar: Troy Duker

Troy Duker, History-Religious Studies major, said of his experience: “As a Mcnair Scholar, I was

fortunate to perform research with Dr. Lynda Sexson this Summer in the field of black American reli-

gion. I analyzed the concept of the ‘black Moses’ and its contribution to the religio-political leader-

ship of black American communities. The study focused on Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey and Dr.

Martin Luther King. These three leaders embraced the title of "black Moses" as a sort of non-

canonical rank within black leadership. I termed this phenomenon, mosaic archetype, meaning that

the title "black Moses" refers to the story of Exodus as a grounds for religious and political authority.

The narrative of these three leaders is often spoken of in terms of enslavement, exile and journey,

mirroring the Children of Israel that Moses led to the Promised Land. This archetype is not to be con-

fused with Jungian terminology, but I employ it simply to mean ‘model.’ The goal of my research

was to explicate the usage of the Exodus narrative to give greater meaning to the Abolitionist, Black

Nationalist and Civil Rights Movements.

McNair Scholar: Shelby Rogala

Shelby Rogala, History and Philosophy Double Major, writes “I have been working on a research

project with the McNair Scholars Program for the past two years dealing with the ethics of interna-

tional aid. Specifically, I am focusing on the realm of international voluntouring, or vacation volun-

teering. As part of my research, I traveled to India to work with a voluntouring operation. I inter-

viewed local community members and volunteers, and gathered information on the voluntour organi-

zation structure. My project has tried to reconcile benefits and costs for both volunteers and local

communities that participate in voluntouring. From establishing key components of operation to chal-

lenging the moral worth of voluntouring, my research seeks to better understand reciprocity, equity,

and methods of sustainable aid in the international realm.”

History, Philosophy, and Religion Student Highlights

Graduate Student News

PhD Candidate Rob Gardner is serving as a Visiting Instructor at Southwestern University.

PhD Candidate Jared Infanger received a research position working with Yellowstone NP.

PhD Candidate Jerry Jessee was awarded a National Science Foundation dissertation improve-

ment grant for his work in environmental and medical implications of nuclear testing.

PhD candidate Diane Smith served as juror and Committee Chair for the L.A. Times Book Award

in History, and edited with Carol Brewer, Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology (AAAS,

2011).

PhD Candidate Bradley Snow will defend his dissertation fall 2011.

P A G E 9

Faculty-Student Collaboration: Mapping Historic Philadelphia

By Jared Infanger

Philadelphia is a rich

historical topic. As

the preeminent city

during the colonial era

and the United States’

first capital, Philadel-

phia provides a wealth

of historical resources.

Philadelphia’s promi-

nence as a port city

and its commitment to

religious tolerance re-

sulted in a diverse and

cosmopolitan popula-

tion. Mapping Histor-

ic Philadelphia is an

interdisciplinary pro-

ject incorporating his-

tory, geography, and Geographic

Information Systems (GIS) to

recreate, represent, and interpret

Philadelphia during the era of the

Early American Republic, 1790-

1800. The project draws infor-

mation from a number of sources

including direct federal tax lists,

city directories, and federal cen-

sus records. The information

from these sources is entered into

a database that is then queried to

generate maps. The maps pro-

vide a visual and graphic repre-

sentation of Philadelphia’s demo-

graphic trends over time. Under

the direction of professors Billy

Smith, Stuart Challender, and

Bill Wyckoff, history graduate

students, Paul Sivitz and Jared

Infanger, and geography under-

graduate students, Alex Schwab

and Alice Hecht, transcribed data

from the Philadelphia city

directory of 1801. This directory

lists the names, occupations, and

addresses of the city’s inhabit-

ants. After creating the database,

each name was given a unique

identification number that would

allow the GIS software to query

the database and generate maps

showing where people lived and

worked in Philadelphia in 1801.

These maps provide clues to the

socio-economic conditions at the

close of the eighteenth century as

well as reveal information about

the average person. Comparing

data and maps from the Federal

Census, tax records, and city di-

rectories from 1791 to those of

1801 reveals trends about the

population’s movement within

(or out of) the city, the city’s eco-

nomic and social development,

as well as those areas most af-

fected by the yellow fever epi-

demics of the 1790s. The Map-

ping Historic Philadelphia pro-

ject provides a visual component

to history and gives new insight

into understanding the past.

Building on the visual nature of

the GIS maps, the students are

developing a three-dimensional

computer animated walkthrough

of Philadelphia in 1798. Using

drawings from the Historic

American Buildings survey, the

students are reconstructing wards

in Philadelphia to look as they

did over two hundred years ago.

In time, it may be possible to

walk through the streets of Phila-

delphia and understand the spa-

tial relationships of architecture

to the economic and social rela-

tionships of the people living in

the city.

P A G E 1 0 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Mountaineering, Science, and History

By Michael S. Reidy

On August 19th, 1861, the Irish physicist John Tyndall made the first successful ascent of

the Weisshorn, a solitary snow-covered peak in the Swiss Alps. This past summer, my climbing

partner and I followed in Tyndall’s footsteps to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his monumental

achievement.

Tyndall was a pioneering alpinist during the golden age of mountaineering, with numerous

first ascents to his name. He was the first to study the approaches to the Matterhorn and the first to

turn it into a pass, climbing up the Lion’s Ridge from Italy and down the Hornli Ridge to Switzer-

land. He also pioneered guideless climbing, making the first solo climb of the Monte Rosa, the

highest peak in Switzerland.

His ascent of the Weisshorn, however, was his crowning achievement; it had long been

deemed unreachable. At 14,780 ft., it is a daunting climb, with crevassed glaciers at the beginning,

rock and ice bands in the middle, and a massive fifty-degree snow slope guarding its upper reaches.

Tyndall began with his guide J.J. Bennen and porter Ulrich Wenger in the small town of Ronda,

bivouacked mid-way up, woke at 2:15 the next morning, and with a flask full of wine and a bottle

of champagne, reached the summit in twelve hours. “The work was heavy from the first,” Tyndall

boasted, “the bending, twisting, reaching, and drawing up calling upon all the muscles of the

frame.”

At the height of his climbing prowess, Tyndall was also celebrated as one of the greatest

and most controversial scientists in Europe. He had published significant works in electricity,

magnetism, thermodynamics, sound, glaciers, and atmospheric phenomenon, including the first

experimental verification of the natural greenhouse effect (which is why all climate research cen-

ters in Britain are named Tyndall Centres). He combined his two passions – alpine climbing and

experimental physics – in the Swiss Alps every summer for more than thirty years. He experienced

deep time in the formation of mountains and the carving out of valleys, shallow time in the move-

ment of glaciers, and in a single day could travel through several vegetation and atmospheric

zones. He consistently performed experiments and compared observations made at different

heights, deliberately formulating his research programs on his ability to climb vertically up the

sides of mountains.

Much to his young wife’s regret, Tyndall was also the most outspoken agnostic and defend-

ers of Darwinism in the Victorian era. The height of his climbing came in the early 1860s, the same

years in which he formulated his blasphemous views. Mountaineering enabled him to experience

nature firsthand, to see its laws in action, in situ. Yet, for Tyndall, there was always something

more to nature than nature’s laws. A mystery lay behind it that the mountaineer was in a propitious

position to uncover. That mystery, moreover, was deeply personal. “Beside such might,” Tyndall

wrote in his journal after a day of climbing, “man feels his physical helplessness, and obtains the

conception of a power superior to his own. His emotions are stirred. His fear, his terror, his admi-

ration; he ends his survey breathing into the rushing cataract a living soul.”

This is one reason why the Alps were so appealing to Tyndall and other agnostics: it forced

them to grapple with the mystery beyond life. It stirred their emotions and focused impressions of

the sublime. Tyndall found in the Alps a panacea for his loss of faith. On the side of the Weisshorn,

he experienced otherworldliness in a perfectly secular space, where his imagination was allowed to

ramble just as much as his body was allowed to scramble. In the mountains, in the midst of all of

God’s wonders, it was safe to be an ag-

nostic.

There is, of course, selfishness

embedded in the sport of mountaineer-

ing. This is one reason why Tyndall

focused so heavily on science, turning

the mountain into what he called

“Nature’s laboratory.” He required a

justification to climb. Even today, most

mountaineers need similar additional

inducement, whether environmental,

spiritual, or cross-cultural. My histori-

cal interests in Tyndall offered me the

justification to follow Tyndall to the

Swiss Alps.

Going to the Alps has helped

me, in the most simple of senses, to

engage more fully with Tyndall’s life

and work. It has enabled me to put

known places to the many named spac-

es found in his letters and journals. My

growing familiarity with the physical

geography of the region, moreover, has

helped me train graduate students, has

enhanced my scholarship, and in a

more complex way, has help me under-

stand what Tyndall was searching for

on the sides of mountains. It was cer-

tainly something more than science.

Tyndall died two strange

deaths, both at the hands of his wife

Louisa. The first was accidental, quick,

and painless; the second was more de-

liberate, prolonged, and agonizing. In

his first death, Louisa accidentally gave him an overdose of a powerful narcotic. In her grief, she de-

manded control of all his correspondence and journals to write a biography glorifying his life. Twenty

-five years his junior, she outlived him by forty-five years, without publishing anything. With

Louisa’s grief and guilt, and with her enduring promise of publication, Tyndall endured another slow,

frustrating death. As a result, he is largely forgotten today.

Standing on the summit of the Weisshorn exactly 150 years after Tyndall was my way of res-

urrecting his life. He is now more alive to me that any other historical figure I have ever studied.

The summit we shared was different – separated by time, culture, and meaning – but the experience

was similar. I went there searching for Tyndall. As we began our hasty descent, across a knife-edged

ridge of softening snow, I realized with a tinge of regret that I had not thought of Tyndall all day.

The Weisshorn 1861-2011

Historian of Science, Michael Reidy, stands on the same ledge physicist

John Tyndall stood 150 years before while climbing the Weisshorn.

P A G E 1 1

P A G E 1 2 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Faculty News Jim Allard, professor of philosophy, retired in 2011 after nearly

30 years of service. Jim received his doctorate in Philosophy

from Princeton University. He began working for MSU in 1973.

His research interests include 19th century philosophy, the histo-

ry of philosophy, and continental philosophy. Jim has published

many scholarly articles in journals such as the Journal of the His-

tory of Philosophy, Bradley Studies, and Idealistic Studies. He

also published a book, The Logical Foundations of Bradley’s

Metaphysics: Judgment, Inference, and Truth, in 2005. His work

on Bradley’s Metaphysics has been hailed as the single most im-

portant book on the subject. Jim is not only a teacher but also an

advocate for his students. He served as the charter advisor for Phi

Sigma Tau, the philosophy honor society. Fellow philosopher,

Prasanta Bandyopadhay said, “He always puts students’ interests

before anything. Jim understands how to explain hard problems

with a grace rarely seen among philosophers.” Jim’s colleagues

describe him as, “a beacon for the philosophy department.” Phi-

losopher Sara Waller said, “Jim Allard was an example of clarity

and fairness for the Philosophy Department. He brought us closer

to finding the wisdom we seek as philosophers.”

Sara Waller has been busy with students in her “Coyote Re-

search Group” consisting of Michael Ward, Taylor Hiring, Sam

Foulkes and Derek Brouwer. They have so far recorded three

copies of coyote vocalization choruses this semester at Porcu-

pine cabin. Her “Planet of the Apes” Working Group meets eve-

ry third week to discuss philosophical issues related to the

“Planet of the Apes” film and stories with an eye toward devel-

oping a paper for publication. She is frantically busy with her

numerous presentation across the nation. She is scheduled to

have two poster presentations with her lab-mates at the

“International Neuroethics Society Conference”, Washington

DC, in November. One of her posters is on “Boundary Viola-

tion and Moral Judgment: Is the Uncanny Valley the Source of

Moral Outrage?”

Don Demetriades won the 50 Mile Road

National Championships for the fifty year

and older division. In an early March mara-

thon, Don also become one of 30 people in

the world to complete a sub-3:00 marathon

in five different calendar decades; and one

of five people in the world to have run sub-

3:00 in five age-decades.

Tim LeCain is serving as a Senior Research Fellow at the Ra-

chel Carson Center in Munich, Germany. Dr. LeCain will be

working on several publications based on the research results of

a three-year National Science Foundation grant comparing the

environmental histories of two copper mining and smelting

sites: the Anaconda-Butte complex in Montana and the Ashio

complex in Japan. Named in honor of the respected American

environmental writer, the Rachel Carson Center is an interna-

tional center for the environmental humanities. The Center aims

to advance research and discussion concerning the interaction

between human agents and nature, and to strengthen the role of

the humanities in current political and scientific debates about

the environment. It is a joint initiative of the Ludwig Maximili-

ans Universität and the Deutsches Museum.

Susan Cohen spent the summer in Jerusa-

lem, preparing materials from the excava-

tions she has directed at Tel Zahara for pub-

lication. The final site report on the Roman

material, entitled The Excavations of

Tel Zahara I: The Roman and Later Re-

mains, was accepted for publication by

American Schools of Oriental Research,.

She identified a new excavation site

and hopes to return to the field in 2013. Su-

san also signed a contract for her manu-

script, Cores, Peripheries, and Processes:

Urbanization in the Southern Levant in the

Early and Middle Bronze Ages.

Sanford Levy is also presently very busy

in teaching an innovative seminar topic.

Here, he has been discussing several papers

where experiments on human beings show

how their emotions affect their moral judg-

ments. Philosophical theories of morality

usually seem to provide justifications for

what are the right things to do under gen-

eral conditions. However, papers discussed

in Professor Levy’s seminar show that hu-

man beings are actually not that rational

and their alleged sense of morality could be

tweaked easily by minor changes in two

relevant situations. In this seminar, students

are exposed to present their own views on

these issues while commenting on their fel-

low students’ work exhibiting a rare chance

of how students could learn, improve and

master philosophical arguments even when

they are undergraduate students.

Dan Flory had two articles published this

summer, “Bamboozled: Philosophy through

Blackface,” in the Philosophy of Spike Lee,

and “Evil, Mood, and Reflection in the Coen

Brothers: No Country for Old Men” in Cor-

mac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses, No

Country for Old Men, The Road.

Faculty Books: Philosophy of Statistics, Volume 7 Edited by Prasanta Bandyopadhyay, Malcolm R. Forster, Dov M. Gabbay and Paul Thagard

Statisticians and philosophers of science have many common interests but

restricted communication with each other. This volume aims to remedy these

shortcomings. It provides state-of-the-art research in the area of Philosophy of

Statistics by encouraging numerous experts to communicate with one another

without feeling "restricted" by their disciplines or thinking "piecemeal" in their

treatment of issues.

A second goal of this book is to present work in the field without bias toward

any particular statistical paradigm. Broadly speaking, the essays in this Hand-

book are concerned with problems of induction, statistics and probability. For

centuries, foundational problems like induction have been among philosophers'

favorite topics; recently, however, non-philosophers have increasingly taken a

keen interest in these issues. This volume accordingly contains papers by both

philosophers and non-philosophers, including scholars from nine academic dis-

ciplines.

Upcoming Malone Conferences Mapping History: Interdisciplinary Research

The Department of History and Philosophy’s tenth Michael

P. Malone Memorial Conference will be dedicated to the role

of maps in historical research. What can maps tell us about the

beliefs, values, and worldviews of past societies? Thanks to

the recent spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences,

historians of geographical areas ranging from Africa to the

American West are now taking a fresh look at maps as poten-

tial goldmines of evidence about the past. Recent research

suggests that some of the best methods available for analyzing

historical maps and conceptions of space can be found in other

disciplines, notably computer science (GIS) and geography.

Scholars interested in historical mapping are thus beginning to

demonstrate how the craft of the historian can merge in excit-

ing new ways with the spatial, quantitative, visual and techno-

logical methods found in a variety of disciplines.

The Malone Conference, organized by Professors Billy

Smith and Catherine Dunlop (specialists in Early American

and French maps), will be held from October 3-7, 2012 at the

beautiful 320 Ranch near Yellowstone National Park. Confer-

ence participants will include prominent scholars from a range

of disciplines and countries. Graduate students from the histo-

ry program will play an active role in conference discussions.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Tyndall and 19th Century Science

With funding from the Department of

History and Philosophy and the Nation-

al Science Foundation, we will host the

Ninth Michael P. Malone memorial

conference on “John Tyndall and Nine-

teenth-Century Science.” The confer-

ence will bring together some of the

past and current participants of the John

Tyndall Correspondence Project to dis-

cuss issues raised by the NSF-funded

project. It will also include a workshop

for the editors of the anticipated twelve

volumes of Tyndall’s letters, currently

under contract with Pickering & Chatto.

The conference and workshop are

scheduled for mid-June at the 320

Ranch outside of Big Sky, Montana.

For more information, please see the

departmental website or email Michael

Reidy (mreidy@montana.edu) or the

postdoctoral researcher in charge of or-

ganizing the conference Josh Howe

(jhowe@montana.edu).

P A G E 1 4 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Visiting Professor — History

Business Operations Manager Work Study Student Cassandra Balent, a native of Denver, Colorado, stud-

ied history at the University of Denver where she later

became the Assistant Director of the University Honors

Program. Her honors thesis focused on the creation and

reception of an obscure text, Let Us Now Praise Fa-

mous Men, and its relationship to the changing under-

standings of culture and art in the twentieth century.

During this time Cassandra also worked with Vail Re-

sorts as an adaptive ski buddy, and after a brief stint

skiing and mountain biking in Crested Butte, CO, Cas-

sandra started a family with her husband. She has two

children, Gwyneth, 4, and Vann, 1 ½. The family relo-

cated to Bozeman in 2008 and has enjoyed becoming a

part of the community. Cassandra is currently working

toward another degree and comes to History and Philos-

ophy after having served as the accountant for Agricul-

tural Economics and Economics for two years. She is

excited to return to the humanities, even if it is under

the guise of accounting, and is looking forward to par-

ticipating in the department.

Phil Williams grew up

on the shoulder of a forested

hill called Mount Sequoia,

just across town from a pub-

lic university campus in the

Ozarks. He views his three-

year stint on the UM faculty

in Missoula and present po-

sition at MSU in Bozeman

as a homecoming of sorts.

This is because almost all of

his graduate work and the

first two decades of his ca-

reer as a university professor took place in large cities,

namely Los Angeles (UCLA) and Beijing (Peking Uni-

versity) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Phoenix

(Arizona State University) from the mid-1980s to the mid

-2000s. “You have to drive quite a long distance to reach

a genuine wilderness area from the center of any of those

three smoggy cities, while in Bozeman or Missoula it is

but a matter of ten minutes or so,” said Phil. For some-

body as fond of Saturday jaunts along hiking and skiing

trails as Phil is, this is a matter of no small consideration!

It was Phil’s keen interest in Chinese culture and

East Asian studies in general that led him to those

urban universities with their major area studies pro-

grams during the early and middle phases of his aca-

demic career. Phil has also lived and worked for five

years in the Asia-Pacific—in China, New Zealand,

and Taiwan. As a bilingual teacher-scholar now in

his mid-fifties, Phil is increasingly drawn to helping

make Asian studies a more robust component of the

curriculum in less urbanized US public research uni-

versities, such as MSU, which have historically been

noted for excelling in fields other than area studies.

Phil will be teaching various courses in the

history of China, Japan, and Asia in general. His re-

search projects include book chapters on topics such

as the longstanding historical controversy over so-

called “feudalism” in imperial China, along with

copy-editing his annotated translation of a Chinese

dissident social-science treatise on the modern Chi-

nese Party-state’s theory and practice of suppressing

heterodox thinking—a practice that government has

dubbed “thought remolding.”

Kori Robbins is the Department work study student. Kori

writes: This is my first year here at MSU and I'm really

excited! I'm majoring in History with the intent to go to

law school. I would love to work on Capitol Hill or maybe

in the FBI. I grew up surrounded by Griz fanatics in Ana-

conda, MT, who now call me traitor, though jokingly, I

hope! I've recently been the victim of growing up, which

apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's

been going on for quite some time now, without me know-

ing it. Not sure how I feel about it though. I'm beyond ob-

sessed with Harry Potter and I start planning my Hallow-

een costume in June. I love sparkles and music and my

puppy, Zorro. I love the freedom of college, but I also love

things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety

was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I

just think every once in a while you need fries and a choc-

olate milkshake and your mom. I'm pretty stoked that you

read this whole thing. I commend you for that. This was ridiculously long, and you probably have other stuff you

could've done in the last four minutes.

P A G E 1 5 D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y , P H I L O S O P H Y , A N D R E L I G I O U S S T U D I E S

Greetings from the Chair by David Cherry

This has been a rewarding and a chal-

lenging year, one defined both by change and by

the continued successes of our students and fac-

ulty. We will miss Jim Allard, who retired at the

end of June, and Diane Cattrell, who retired two

weeks later. Their 50 years of service to the de-

partment and to MSU is irreplaceable.

Budgets shrink, faculty lines go unfilled.

All of us are being asked to do more with less. It

is a testament, then, to the talent and resolve of

our students and faculty that they continue to win

competitive awards and major grants, and to cre-

ate a record of scholarship that makes us the en-

vy of Humanities departments across the region.

We welcome Cassandra Balent to the depart-

ment, as Business Operations Manager, and Phil-

ip Williams, as Visiting Professor of Asian histo-

ry. We celebrate the well-deserved promotions

of Prasanta Bandyopadhyay to Full Professor

and of Kristen Intemann to Associate Professor.

And we rejoice in the remarkable accomplish-

ments of the indomitable Ethicats, including Phi-

losophy majors Matt Smith, Madeleine Pike and

Sam Foulkes, and History major Shelby Rogala,

whose debating skills, honed by Professor

Intemann, placed them a close second in the Na-

tional Ethics Bowl Championship, narrowly de-

feated by Central Florida University in the final

round, after they had vanquished the likes of

UNC – Chapel Hill and Whitworth College.

National trends make it clear that the sys-

temic underfunding of higher education is un-

likely to be reversed anytime soon. Make no

mistake about it: even tougher times lie ahead.

Everything suggests that the resources that we’ll

be given to do our work will continue to be whit-

tled away, slowly but surely.

Yet, I’m unabashedly optimistic about the fu-

ture of the department. Our students, graduate

and undergraduate, continue to pile up awards,

and to gain placement in nationally competitive

programs. Our ever more resourceful faculty

continue to distinguish themselves, winning in-

ternational recognition for their scholarship, like

Tim LeCain, who is spending this year as a Sen-

ior Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Envi-

ronment and Society in Munich. And in our new

advising and retention initiatives, we are at the

leading edge of the university’s commitment to

“student-centered” education.

Ours is the best humanities program in

the state, hands down. With the creative energy

that characterizes our commitment to teaching

and scholarship, we will, even in a world of

shrinking resources, continue to provide both our

undergraduate and graduate students with world-

class educational opportunities.

Welcome to our

New Graduate Students Fall 2011!

Derek Akin Jeff Bartos

Chad Freitag Jim Lewis

Bryan Sciulli Gary Sims

Craig Townsend

Department of History, Philosophy

and Religious Studies

If you would care to contribute to the Department, and

its many student opportunities, please clip and send this

form with your tax-deductible contribution to:

History, Philosophy and Religious Studies

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PO Box 172320

Bozeman, MT 59717-2320

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